[computer-go] Computer tournament at next US Go Congress?

[Nick Wedd]

In message <74F2E256-5B92-42F6-A6CB-0E05F1455245 at lclark.edu>, Peter 
Drake <drake at lclark.edu> writes
>The next US Go Congress will be held July 28 - August 4, 2007, in 
>Lancaster, Pennsylvania:
>
>http://congress.usgo.org/
>
>Is anyone else planning to attend?
>
>I would, at the very least, like to gather a casual meeting of Go 
>programmers.
>
>It might also be interesting (and a good media opportunity) to hold a 
>computer tournament. I see three possibilities:
>
>1) Not require the machines in question to be physically present.  This 
>would require a certain amount of faith that there were really programs 
>at the other end, so it would probably not be appropriate to offer any 
>prize for this. This is the easiest to organize, as it amounts to 
>convincing Nick to hold that month's KGS tournament on an appropriate 
>date.

As things stand, the August KGS bot tournament is scheduled for Sunday 
August 5th, small boards only, Asian evening/European morning/American 
night.  Rather than reschedule or change this, I would prefer to run a 
separate event, and let you specify the format, time limits, etc.

>2) Require people to bring their machines. This is a bit of a pain  for 
>the programmers.
>
>3) Require all programs to run on identical machines provided on- site. 
>Hopefully someone could arrange a local computer vendor to loan  some 
>fast machines in return for the free press. This approach would, 
>unfortunately, exclude SlugGo and anyone that's been building special- 
>purpose hardware. I might try to swing this at the 2008 Congress, which 
>will be held here in Portland, Oregon, the home of a very large Intel 
>facility.

The usual arrangement is a combination of 2 and 3 - the sponsors provide 
standard Windows platforms, while any competitor who wants to bring his 
own hardware may do so.
>
>Such a tournament could be followed up by an exhibition match against 
>strong humans (including professionals).
>
>What do you think? Is there anyone in the Pennsylvania area that  would 
>be willing to organize such a tournament this year?
>
>Peter Drake
>http://www.lclark.edu/~drake/

Nick
-- 
Nick Wedd    nick at maproom.co.uk